‘We’ll do our best, dear,’ Mrs Wilting promised in a very unconvincing quaver.
***
They’d reached Seventeen, Toss out a Brick to Attract a Jade, which Baldwin said had the broadest use of all. Jane copied this into her notes without feeling any inspiration.
The professor sported a silk tie of hot pink, in defiance of the winter so grey and wet. Keith announced he would be missing the class on Stratagems Nineteen and Twenty. His company had ordered their middle management attend a seminar on the reinsurance response to the economic recession—at a five-star hotel in the Canary Islands.
‘How is your homework? Any of you working ahead?’
Jane explained the Bookworms’ dilemma. It was far easier than confessing to the class that Joe had moved out.
‘Well, prepare a trap, Jane, and then lure your enemy by using bait. Yes, Kevin?’
‘Wouldn’t Seventeen cover any kind of advertising? Or am I just a strategy yobbo?’
‘Not at all. Your uses of the tactics don’t have to be obscure or convoluted. Seventeen is all about advertising, especially if you promise more than you intend to deliver. Take the tale of Quenching Thirst with a Promise of Plums.’
Baldwin had given up on the canteen’s coffee-coloured swill. He poured himself a cup of green tea from a dark red clay pot freshened with steaming water from a thermos.
‘Do you recall Lord Cao Cao?’
‘The head-in-the-gift-box chap?’
‘Very good, Kevin. Lord Cao Cao led his troops into parched terrain. When they complained of thirst, he sent round a rumour that up ahead lay a large grove of plum trees. The soldiers’ mouths watered at the very suggestion. This illusion sustained the army until they reached actual water.’
Jane left the class that night as she had for weeks, still puzzling as to what attraction Joe held for Bella. Baldwin’s summary of Seventeen was, ‘In war, the bait is the illusion of an opportunity for gain. In life, the bait is the illusion of wealth, power, or sex.’
Joe wasn’t wealthy. He wasn’t powerful. His sex appeal was so visibly on the wane that Jane was sure Bella could have done better at any London media party.
***
‘Political dreams, Jane, have swollen Bella’s head,’ Rachel Murty spat out an olive pit. ‘Like some kind of Ambition Encephalitis.’ They sat squeezed on two narrow benches lining a long table in a Greek restaurant. They had to shout across the table at each other through animated conversations on both sides.
‘I don’t have to tell you, Jane, that woman has an astonishing sense of entitlement. She always gets what she wants, so usually she can afford to be very sweet about it.’ Rachel pursed her lips. ‘Though not always.’
‘But why Joe? Surely she’s not short of offers?’ Jane watched Rachel order her second ouzo with iced water. It was just half past noon.
Rachel pulled back her puffy bronze hair, rubbed her temples, and exploded with relief. ‘Oh, I’m so happy to get this off my chest. I’ve felt simply awful for weeks and weeks watching her work her wiles on Joe and everybody just knowing how evil she’s been to you? Not to mention using Sammie.’
Rachel let her new high-rise wedge platforms clack off her feet on to the wooden floor underneath their table. She groaned with relief. ‘These things are giving me blisters. I thought the problem would be falling off and breaking my ankle, but they’re just too tight.’ She stabbed a dolmadaki with a toothpick and shrugged, ‘The thing is, I think Joe’s essential for the new Bella.’
‘The new Bella?’ Jane shouted over the noisy crowd.
‘No better than the old. She’s so very tired of being just a kitchen celebrity. Cooking is so shallow, given the world situation. She needs to expand. She wants to reposition herself in the market. The cover of Good Food isn’t enough. Bringing the world into her kitchen only demonstrates her unrealized potential, I overheard her say on the phone to somebody. I think it was her new image consultant or maybe it was her mother, although I’ve long doubted that she was “born of womankind,” to quote the Bard.’
‘How does Joe fit in?’
‘Well, he’s not just a pretty face, as you well know. He’s political. He cares about the world. That’s sexy. Lots of other girls have tried with Joe—and failing with him, moved on to other prey. You can’t imagine the things I’ve overheard while using the loo. You remember that Panorama editor who was supposed to be at his desk in London, but kept turning up on shoots so he could shag the talent? Really irritating to the rest of the crew. The Department punished him all right—gave him Blue Peter, but Jane, he certainly wasn’t the first or last producer to tumble. They all do, sooner or later. Perks of the job. By the low standards of our profession, Joe is . . . ” Rachel searched for the best word, ‘… a saint. Watching Bella work on him has been very upsetting for me, like watching a Great White swimming around a dolphin.’
‘You’re upset, Rachel? I wake up in the middle of the night, remember he’s not there, remember where he is, and start crying.’
‘Yes, you look all puffy. Pat some Preparation H on your lower eyelids. Reduces the swelling. Tip from Jenny in Make-up. The moussaka sounds nice. At least you’re still standing.’
‘Thanks to an evening class in, well, coping mechanisms.’
‘That’s good. Aromatherapy? Meditation?’
‘Chinese proverbs, mostly.’
‘Have you talked to Joe?’
‘He’s blaming the entire world, my mother’s demands, even my job, but never himself.’
‘He blames you?’
‘Oh, he tried.’ Jane’s tone was drier than her white wine, ‘Apparently I read too much.’
‘You read too much? Well, you certainly can’t say that about Bella. Forget the moussaka. That lemony fish looks good. I’ll have some of that, may I?’ Rachel handed the menu to the waiter and looked at Jane as straight as she could with her crossed eyes squinting through violet contacts from under miniature awnings of caked mascara that only rendered her complexion a bluer white.
‘Reading too much? That’s probably Bella’s line. The Daily Mail is about it for her. I’m surprised she got Joe to swallow it, but then she didn’t really put her back into it, so to speak, until she got Joe down to Italy and had la dolce vita up and running.’
‘So tell me how she’s repositioning herself politically.’
Rachel nodded. ‘She’s got me flying in all directions on this new image-building project. You won’t believe it.’
‘Try me.’ Bella’s previous passions were Power Yoga, Pilates, Covent Garden fund-raising, and collecting modern Vietnamese paintings. Jane poured more ouzo into Rachel’s glass.
‘I really shouldn’t. Thanks.’ Rachel’s pale cheeks flushed. ‘She wants to be a goodwill ambassador.’
‘A spokeswoman?’
‘With a global profile. A cause. Her very own disease. Or knowing her, an entire plague.’ Rachel leaned across the table. ‘The truth is, she’s scared. Broadcasting House is talking of moving the whole BBC Lifestyle channel—cookery shows and the like—lock, stock, and wok—up to Media City in Salford. Manchester!’
‘And Joe knows?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘There is no way Bella would move north. She’s had me calling round the charities for weeks. Wants me to knock on doors in Geneva and offer her as a front woman for one of the humanitarian agencies, but you’d be surprised. Do-gooding is a seller’s market. Or do I mean buyers? Anyway, I’ve tried New York, Geneva, even that UN office in Vienna. Did you know they’ve even got waiting lists? Mostly second-eleven types, if you ask me. I can’t even get her an interview.’
‘Nobody wants her?’
‘Oh, don’t think I didn’t try’ Rachel ticked off on her fingers: ‘UNHCR, UNICEF, UNRWA, UN, WHO, all the cancers I could think of, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, handicapped, arthritis, thyroid, eczema, ingrown toenails. They’re all taken. I got exactly one call back—The Sussex Spleen Society. The skankier the star, the keener to whitewash her reputation,
so how can Bella, who has never so much as donated a rusty tin opener to her local Women’s Institute, compete with Angelina Jolie? Not that Bella sees it that way.’
Rachel assumed Bella’s duck-lipped moue and shoved her scraggly bosom on to the table in imitation of her boss’s pigeon frontage. Imitating Bella’s fluting tones, she protested, ‘After all, I’ve got sooo much to offer. It’s selfish of me to keep me to myself.’
Through her painful laughter, Jane suffered a horrible realization. If she didn’t have a ‘brick to toss’ as a lure to win back Joe, she now had an inkling of the lures Bella was dangling. Rachel’s account of Bella searching for her cause célèbre sounded too familiar, too perilously similar to Joe’s cravings to return to hard news, to produce meaningful stories and to be pertinent again.
So it wasn’t sex or celebrity passes or designer food or functional illiteracy that had lured Joe from Jane’s side. No, it wasn’t even some instinctive application of Stratagem Seventeen—tossing some cheap brick in Joe’s path. Bella was using the most fatal seduction of all for a frustrated idealist like Joe—the proposal that together they harness her notoriety to make the world a better place. And to a good man beaten down by years of professional rejections, the possibility of Bella as part of the sales package might seem made of pure jade.
Jane despaired.
Chapter Eighteen, Qin Zei, Zin Wang
(To Catch the Bandits, Catch their Leader)
Joe came back to pack two groaning suitcases, his warped squash racket, and at Lorraine’s last-minute insistence, all ten years of his beloved National Geographic archived in IKEA shelves on her attic landing. Clear skies eased his clumsy exit for two days, and then released their chilly grip with yet another downpour. The square’s more wistful veterans talked of snow falling on Primrose Hill, back when.
Sammie said the clammy weather gave her an upset tummy. Looking a little green, she took to her bed for a day. Midweek dawned with the sun slanting golden shafts through smothering grey clouds, but she hid a sullen face deep in her hoodie like a wraith; the girl-woman rose, donned long mittens and low-seated jeans, and headed off for school. Jane knew things were wrong with Sammie but she simply felt too miserable right now to give the child more attention.
Lorraine was going down to Ealing to look in on her old friend StJohn Stevens. She took ages to get ready but such sorties to see old luvvies always did Lorraine good. She might soon have to resort to diapers for the elderly, but at least she could see where she was going. StJohn wasn’t as lucky. He’d long ago traded in Malvolio’s gold-topped walking stick and crossed yellow garters for a white cane and support socks for diabetics.
Always the grande dame before her backstage reunions, Lorraine left the house in full kit—a broad-brimmed hat and dramatic shawl, clip earrings like Colorado boulders and her battered Kelly bag. In case there was an audition call for glamorous old coots between now and dinner, she was ready to ‘read.’ Watching her descend the stairs, Jane spotted the Auntie Mame wacky exit. Her mother had a whole gallery of polished entrances and exits in her bag of tricks.
In any event, the thespian’s salute to her waiting cabbie had a cock-eyed, chin-up charm. Jane needn’t worry. Lorraine was capable of succumbing to many humiliations, but expiring in Ealing was not going to be one of them.
Jane faced the bathroom mirror. A web of wrinkles radiated out from the ends of her eyes, criss-crossing the freckled skin on her temples. Her neglected eyebrows crawled towards each other like lonely caterpillars, while her lashes had disappeared.
Today was the lunch with Dan. Although he wasn’t handsome like Joe or even Jane’s ‘type,’ the novelty of lunch with any man besides Chris was undeniable. She didn’t look anything like a woman warrior of beauty braced for fresh combat. ‘Careworn’ would be kind. Her clothes didn’t fit any longer. Her face needed blusher or lipstick, but when she tried to rouge up, she resembled a weathered Tibetan lady on the cover of Joe’s National Geographics.
So it was with some self-consciousness that after a quarter of an hour’s dishevelling march down to Camden Lock, she saw Dan had taken great trouble over his appearance. He’d swapped the lime anorak and boyish trainers for a grey sports jacket over a polo shirt. His overshined dress shoes reminded Jane of a sergeant on parade.
They started to walk together. If their attire didn’t match, at least their legs were similarly proportioned. Taking a walk with Joe meant Jane skipping and hopping to keep up with his impatient strides.
They turned into the market. Some of the stalls were open, but the novelty T-shirts looked forlorn in the winter cold. Windy gusts rattled the jewellery and beaded handbags on display.
‘Haven’t been here in years and years, not since the fire. Joe and I used to come down here Sunday mornings to pick around the stalls, grab something to eat. Sometimes we’d come with another couple and have a lovely, long lunch, just the four of us.’ More often than not, Bella and Her Morning After . . . How Jane and Joe used to review that disaster zone, safe in their cosy conspiracy of happiness. ‘After my daughter was born, it got a bit difficult pushing the stroller through the crowds, stopping for feeds or changing nappies. We finally had to give it up because Joe was in the cutting room most weekends.’
It was all the same junk for sale: embroidered pillows, Moroccan ceramics, antique tin toys, cufflinks shaped like tea pots in Roger Stone’s jewellery window and souvenir T-shirts. Jane recalled a small moonstone ring Joe had bought for her from an antiques vendor—where had that bauble gone? She remembered Joe, standing right over there, thumbing through used LP’s—Dylan, Sam Cooke, Joni Mitchell—asking her to hang on while he looked for an elusive Byrds album. Now here was Dan, hunting for a souvenir for his grown daughter in Hawaii. How little she knew about his personal life.
Jane recalled, for an excruciating instant, what it was like to be in untroubled love with Joe. You never saw, at the heights of such happiness, that it had to end. You didn’t stop everything and say, I’m resting right here with this happiness. I refuse to move on. No, you just went home, made lunch and made love.
The chagrin vanished. She glanced at Dan—so painfully out of place, so Lands End American—paying for a pair of Camilla and Charles coffee mugs.
‘You’re joking. They’re not even William and Kate.’
‘My son-in-law is an insufferable architect with impeccable taste. Doesn’t Prince Charles specialize in architectural criticism?’
‘That’s pretty cruel.’
‘I wish I could see his face when he unwraps these.’
‘Well, I don’t see a single thing I can’t live without.’
‘Except lunch. Lunch never goes out of fashion.’
The weather was just clement enough for them to brave an empty terrace overlooking the stagnant waters of the canal. They ordered very simple food, guided by the smell of gravy and piecrust. Two boats floated at anchor on a sleepy ripple lapping the wall of the café.
‘Distract me, Dan. Distract me from my self-loathing,’ Jane stretched her arms up to the pale light.
‘Why? Self-loathing’s so much fun. Wallow away. I’ve never stopped feeling sorry for myself—and Sharon left me fifteen years ago.’ Dan shrugged. ‘When I got back from Kuwait, it dawned on her that separation had been better than marriage. I’d served twenty-five years so I could take early retirement and suddenly, I was out of the service and the marriage. Maybe she didn’t like me out of uniform. I never was much of a clotheshorse.’
He took a long pull on his beer and smiled. ‘Was that distracting?’
‘Yes.’ Dan’s dependable voice filled dead air like a pleasant radio DJ.
‘So I finally joined the NYPD. All that War College training, language school, service in Thailand, Hong Kong, the Middle East—I had to trade it in for something. The only other option was some bullshit arms-trade consultancy or service with a security firm in Iraq.’
‘It brought you to London. Paid travel. An important assignment.’
He ran out of chat. He wasn’t the sort of man who talked about himself for any length of time. ‘So, how’s Baldwin’s class working out for you?’
‘Totally useless, actually, but fun. Baldwin was right about the other class. What a depressing lot! But the stratagems could never change Joe’s feelings.’
‘Hooked, is he?’
‘By that she-devil. To think she was my best friend.’
‘You must have other girlfriends. You’re too nice.’
‘I did, but now I realize too late Bella scared them off. She’s possessive about everything.’
‘So defeatist? Ah, c’mon. Give Joe time. Years of misunderstanding can take a lot of time to repair.’
‘Talking from experience?’
‘Nope. But you say she’s the evil one. You haven’t given up on him?’
‘She’s a monster of vanity.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’re right, she’s a monster and all that, but you’ve heard the old saying—it always takes two to monst?’
Their chicken pies steamed into the cold air, Dan pierced his crust with a fork. ‘‘Oh, that’s hot. Careful. Don’t forget Number Eighteen. To Catch the Thieves, Catch the Leader. So our question is, who’s the real problem here, your Joe or his Martha Stewart?’
Jane sniffed the delicious pie and looked at her broccoli dusted with butter and breadcrumbs. For the first time in weeks, she felt peckish. Was it the wine? The sun on her cheeks?
‘Forget Joe. I’d rather talk about my reading club, where there’s never been any doubt that the enemy is a know-it-all member named Carla. Loose her on the city and the entire library system would shut down in a mass attack of over-informed depression.’
Love and the Art of War Page 17
