Love and the Art of War

by Dinah Lee Küng

  ‘A bottle of aftershave doesn’t prove—’

  ‘ . . . Then we got to this charming hotel in Italy, she says, oh it’s so charming, darling Joe, yeah, right, sure, with the antipasto in the buffet rotting in the sun half the day. Mum, my bed had a trough running down the middle that made me feel like a human hammock. Rachel couldn’t stop crying, she was really, really shattered by packing up the whole kitchen set-up for taking on location—’

  ‘About Bella and your father?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, well, as far as they were concerned, this dump with the dripping taps was the Muppets’ Happiness Hotel. I caught them sucking face in the corridor just after Bella threw a wobbly at Phil—’

  ‘The cameraman with the limp?’ Lorraine was ever particular about the dramatis personae of any anecdote . . .

  ‘He’s the one. Phil said Bella’s vitello tonnato gave the crew heaves and zap! Dad was right there to comfort her.’

  ‘Then he never wanted to get off that show?’ Jane said. ‘All those pitches I helped him with, they were all just to cover up his affair? I don’t understand. When Bella and I had lunch, I had the feeling that she wasn’t that sure of him.’

  Sammie bit her lip, ‘No, no! You were right, Mum. She is totally insecure, about everything, especially about her job. Bella wants Dad to get back into Current Affairs even more than you do. Because she wants to ditch The Travelling Kitchen. She’s going to reinvent herself.’

  ‘You mean this crazy idea of being a celebrity do-gooder? I thought that was just a fantasy non-starter.’

  ‘No, Rachel was right. She’s been nourishing a Lady Di fantasy for years. She sees herself in a safari jacket cuddling little Africans or sitting on the board of The Prince’s Trust or getting a gong for saving the world from—’

  ‘Indigestion!’ Lorraine thrust a fist into the sky. ‘Solve the Middle East with a polenta recipe!’

  ‘It’s not funny, Grandma! Don’t you two see? It isn’t just that Bella wants Dad. I mean, she wants every man she meets—to want her. She just doesn’t love Dad the way we do, you know, for the wrong reasons, like, he lobs all his tennis balls until you’re laughing yourself sick—’

  ‘And wraps my Christmas presents with duct tape—’ Lorraine nodded.

  ‘—And rereads the footnotes to The Annotated Sherlock Holmes every single summer vacation,’ Jane added with fond regret.

  ‘Bella knows Dad has talent,’ Sammie explained. ‘She reckons with her face and figure and his documentary connections, Dad could—wait, wait, let me remember, oh yeah—“share her high-altitude view to frame her new concept”—’

  ‘Oh, stop!’ Jane burst out laughing despite herself. Bella had not only stolen her man, she’d battened down her man’s escape hatch. Jane’s wonderful scheme that Joe rustle up his chef contacts to produce an exposé about famine, diet, and the food industry, his escape route out of the pressure cooker of The Travelling Kitchen, his abandonment of Bella to her crazy reductions, concoctions and conniptions—it was all now hijacked by Bella’s Bono fantasies?

  Lorraine patted Jane’s hand. ‘Joe can be such a sweet mug. He reminds me of Lloyd in All About Eve. Like a fly in her sticky web. I can just see Bella now, rehearsing her Nobel Peace Prize speech in front of her mirror . . . ’

  ‘Sammie, why are you rubbing all this in? You know how much it hurts.’

  ‘Because you’re so passive, Mum! All my life, you’ve had your head in a book or a library meeting or now, that stupid evening class, for months, for years even! I’m just trying to wake you up! Doesn’t anything make you mad enough to do something? Don’t you still love Dad?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Sammie! I’m not passive, but I’m not going to get anywhere by throwing hysterics day and night like Mrs Rochester in her attic!’

  Lorraine considered, ‘Personally, I always thought Mrs Rochester was the meatier part . . . underwritten perhaps, but full of good stage business, setting the whole house on fire—’

  ‘Lorraine, please! Sammie, I have to use my brains, as well as all my courage and all my heart. I’m hurt and angry with your father right now. I still love him.’

  ‘So why didn’t you get married when you had the chance!’ Sammie shot to her feet, her skinny, scratched-up arms pounding the air.

  ‘Sammie!’ Lorraine reprimanded.

  ‘Well, they should have got married. You also said so to me. I should have proper parents. What difference would it have made to you? You still have to share me. You still have to raise me. Do you think I really want to spend all my Saturdays in Knightsbridge with Bella, just to see how many times she stops to autograph somebody’s Green Planet shopping bag, “Oh, you’re really too kind, I really must move on, you know. I too have my little errands to run, just like you, you poor nonentity, but you’re turribly, turribly, turribly sweet to watch my show,” and you wonder why I want to barf?’

  Lorraine clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, she has my talent for mimicry. You do see it, don’t you Jane? They say genes jump a generation.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense. So why did you move to her flat, if Bella’s so sickening? Just to play Peeping Tom?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, the romance is way over already. Bella called Rachel from the bathroom last night. I can hear everything from the guest room. Bella said Rachel would end up as a PA on Hell’s Kitchen if she didn’t step up the search for her charity to push her image upmarket. On and on about The Vision. She accused Dad of being loyal to everybody but her, his lack of vision, not to mention Rachel’s inability to embrace the vision. Bella was shouting about the synergy of their three visions.’

  ‘Lordy. Sounds like a weekend at Fatima.’ Lorraine shrugged and said, ‘I know, I know. Not Helpful.’

  ‘Bella says we’re stakeholders in The Vision, and problems are only challenges. It’s not so hilarious when you have to listen to this stuff over breakfast, Grandma. Dad needs me there. And you know what?’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Hang in there, Mum. They row every single day. She’s trying to change Dad’s accent when he says “about” and “boat.” She criticizes his clothes. One of these days, she’ll go too far.’

  ‘Over his accent or his lack of vision?’

  Sammie shook her head. ‘She’s wearing Dad out, grinding him down, and if she doesn’t get her new show mounted with award-winning Gilchrist production values and if she doesn’t get a new vehicle “pre-prepared” to go forward for the autumn season, well, she might spit him right back in your direction.’

  ‘All chewed up,’ Jane said. ‘How appetizing, but unlikely, Sammie.’

  ‘Jane, you should never have bought her The Parent Trap.’

  Sammie hugged her mother’s waist and shook her. ‘Mum, do something! Move in on her. Dad’s so tired out. He’s hurt from all those rejections. He’s confused. So confuse him more. You always wrongfoot Dad in tennis and then when it’s deuce, you let him win with his silly lobbing. Just do that in real life. Get yourself a new look or even a new guy. Then when everyone thinks you’re happy and safe and full of forgiveness, move in on her when nobody’s watching.’

  ‘She’s the devil’s spawn,’ Lorraine rejoiced. ‘Aren’t you proud of her, Jane?’

  ‘Thanks, Grandma. Count on me, Mum, and never forget, I’m your man on the inside.’

  ***

  Were Sammie and Baldwin in telepathic communication? Or was Stratagem Twenty, the second of six Chaos tactics, just good old common sense: before engaging your enemy’s forces, create confusion to weaken his perception and judgement. Do something unusual, strange, and unexpected. This will arouse the enemy’s suspicion and disrupt his thinking. A distracted enemy is more vulnerable.

  For once, Baldwin wouldn’t be cluttering their chaotic notebooks with too many Chinese warlord stories.

  ‘ . . . So that’s Number 20 in a nutshell. Muddy the Waters to Confuse and Catch the Fish. Sun Tzu advises the same tactics with, as usual, a bit less poetry: Confuse the enemy, conceal your str
ength, jumble your orders, convert your banners, ease off the enemy’s vigilance by hiding what it fears or offering what it likes. Provide distorted information . . .’

  It was worth a try, a desperate try, Jane thought, now committed, despite her reclusive leanings, to muddy the waters into emotional sludge.

  During the next coffee break in Baldwin’s class, she blurted at Dan, ‘Would you come over tonight? I mean, would you like to come over, for a late snack, or just a night-cap?’

  Dan stood, stunned, in the middle of the corridor. ‘Um, I was planning on catching a late game on satellite. Uh, gee—’

  ‘Oh, I understand, I really do. Joe always likes his hockey games “Live from Winnipeg.” Maybe some other time. No problem. Really.’

  Dan waited for a more definitive cue, perhaps a mating call like a coquettish giggle.

  He fumbled, ‘Um, yeah, sure, why not? Maybe a quick one? A snack, uh, that would be fine. But you don’t have to cook, just a snack. Sure, cool.’

  Jane called Sammie’s mobile. ‘Darling, there’s been a change of plan. I know you were going to keep Grandma company, but I want you to stay there with Dad tonight—’

  ‘Mum, I can’t. Bella’s having a dinner party tonight. The guest of honour is that F-word chef, so she told Dad it’s bound to be absolutely-X-rated-fabulous. She doesn’t want a kid hanging around once the drinking gets going.’

  ‘Well, you tell Bella, that I’m also having a friend over.’

  ‘So what? You’re having a friend over. Winston? To do homework? I can still watch telly with Grandma. Otherwise, Bella’ll make me hide in the kitchen to put little slices of things on other little slices of things.’

  ‘Your grandmother is visiting her friend Charlotte. And it’s NOT Winston. It’s someone else from my class, an American, on secondment for some antiterrorism work.’

  There was an appreciative silence, then, ‘Wow, Mum. Cool. Can I drop that on Bella?’

  ‘Please do just that.’

  ‘Only she’d try to hire him as a bodyguard for her charity trips. Is he hunky? What if Dad finds out?’

  ‘Sammie, your mother is a single woman past her prime facing Friday night in a lonely flat. I can invite someone for a drink, I suppose?’ Jane sounded braver than she felt.

  Dan paid the taxi fare for them to get back to the flat in record time, but it was an awkward ride. Whereas he’d turned up for lunch nicely dressed and primed with anecdotal patter to soothe the aggrieved classmate, he’d already invested tonight’s energy in a six-pack in the fridge and game statistics. He was finding it hard to switch channels at the last minute.

  ‘How do you do?’ Lorraine said, sweeping down from her own front door as Jane led Dan up the stairs. Jane recognized her mother’s Gloria Swanson swoop from Sunset Boulevard. Lorraine paused long enough to tell Dan that her dear friend Charlotte in Islington was one of life’s permanent understudies—spending years waiting for a chance to do Helena Charles in a revival Look Back in Anger.

  ‘Poor Charlotte never got called, and she has been looking back in anger ever since 1986.’ Lorraine’s hoary old Charlotte chestnut was wasted on Dan. He shifted his workaday leather case from one hip to the other, nodded, and promised to read Osborne ‘real soon.’

  Dan got his cold beer anyway and drank on the edge of the sofa where a week ago, Joe had sobbed over Sammie’s razor madness.

  As she whipped up omelettes, Jane heard herself chattering too much—about Baldwin, Winston’s failure to exploit anything or anybody with things Chinese, the Bookworms’ fractiousness, and even her BBC career cut short by Sammie’s birth.

  ‘There we are,’ she said, placing two hot plates of scrambled eggs on the kitchen table with the very best wine from Joe’s collection. ‘So, how’s your operation going? I mean, whatever you can tell.’

  He stared at the label. ‘My, my, your usual plonk? Thanks. Well, something has to break. To tell you the truth, things are still quiet on the inside. Maybe something’s tipped them off. It’s making everybody nervous. Like those westerns where they say, “Quiet out there. Yeah. Too quiet”.’

  ‘Well, you can’t just do nothing, can you? MI5 can’t afford another spate of headlines screaming, where did they go wrong?’

  ‘Bingo. But what can we do? Scotland Yard can watch these guys down the road,’ he gestured behind him at the square, ‘download bomb recipes. Our guy inside, Gilbert, sits there with them, eating chips and zapping through DVD’s promising virgins, grapes—choose your translation—in exchange for suicide. He meets guys who met guys who knew guys convicted of plots, or they’ve travelled to Pakistan but—’

  ‘Arrest them!’

  ‘There’s no actual plot. Say, do you have some Tabasco? That’d be great, thanks. No evidence, no target, no crime, no conviction. Scotland Yard couldn’t give these guys a parking ticket. You could hold them for 42 days—or 42 years—there’s nothing.’

  ‘But there’s a law against incitement, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yup, but hooting with laughter at a beheading on DVD isn’t a crime, Jane.’

  Dan ate his meal with obvious appreciation. How long had it been since a woman had cooked for him? They drained Joe’s vintage bottle as Dan ticked off all the trials and precedents that might affect their surveillance of the bookstore. Soon, Jane had lost track in a bewildering summary of local boys with ties to Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Jamaica and Brooklyn.

  She made coffee in a subdued mood. Dan’s allusions to plots thwarted or even only suspected were chilling. It was a still night outside under the street lamps of Chalkwood Square, but after listening to Dan’s stories, Jane’s corner of London felt like the still eye at the centre of a hurricane of nerves.

  ‘People have no idea, do they, Dan? It’s hard to imagine every morning that someone wants to hurt you. And that hundreds and hundreds of people are always on duty to protect you.’

  ‘That’s why I love Baldwin’s class.’ Dan’s undistinguished features broke into a smile. ‘Once a week I’m reminded that things are always in flux and always in play. ‘Kind of cheers me up. Things must be getting better if they’re getting worse.’

  He cleared his plate to the sink and walked with his wine glass over to gaze out the tall windows.

  ‘Pretty pricey corner of London, huh?’ Jane detected a note of the have-not. ‘But then, what isn’t to a divorced guy with a one-bedroom condo in Fort Lee?’

  She nodded, ‘When Joe and I moved in, we were gentrifying pioneers. The houses were built in the 1850’s but over the years this part of London got run-down. Everybody muddled along. There was a batty opera singer who held court on the kerb and was looked after by all the neighbours. There were committees and street fairs. Then we started to get film stars, rock stars, even an Attorney General who got arrested for kerb crawling. He committed suicide, poor man. A psychiatrist lives over there. A singer from Led Zeppelin in the grey one. And the daughter of a Tory peer in the basement of the blue one. A Russian billionaire lives opposite—’

  ‘The pink one with the red door?’

  ‘No pun intended, unfortunately. Or maybe he bought it for the red door. Anyway, Lorraine says three thugs check the street before he dives into the back of his car.’

  ‘I bet your mother doesn’t miss a leaf dropping.’

  ‘She fights with the cat over who gets the sunny spot on the window seat.’

  ‘Wish she could tell us who pays the bookstore’s rent.’

  There was a long silence. Sir Bernard emerged from the house next door, keys in hand, and drove off, a blonde granddaughter taking the back seat.

  ‘He was knighted for redesigning a railway station,’ Jane said. ‘Or a Sainsbury’s. I forget which.’

  ‘Oh. I guess that’s a big deal.’ Dan emptied his glass. The conversation drained away too. ‘Well, it’s probably time for me to go.’

  She studied his sturdy features—the six o’clock shadow, the thick neck, and the collar he’d ironed in his
bedsit to save on per diem. The evening was young and he didn’t move. Jane shared his confusion as the muddy waters swirled around them.

  ‘Um, I’d sure like to kiss you before I go,’ he said finally. Yet he didn’t budge a centimetre in her direction. ‘The fact is, I’m a little out of practice. Anyway, I had the impression that you’re still, you know—oh, what the hell!’

  He took her into his arms with awkward enthusiasm and kissed her hard. Jane felt awash in the sensations that came from not-Joe kissing, not-Joe smell, not-Joe chest, and not-Joe ferocity of longing. Dan wanted her very much. She kissed him back, her breasts mashed against his barrel chest and her legs pulled tight against his thighs.

  She was just relaxing into this brash exploration of things not-Joe, when she heard a key turn in her front door. Dan didn’t hear it, so Jane’s struggle to break his embrace succeeded too late by a few crucial seconds.

  Joe stood bug-eyed in the doorway. ‘I thought you were at an evening class.’

  ‘Aren’t you hosting a dinner party?’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’re going on to some nightspot. Bella says I need my black shirt.’

  ‘You moved out weeks ago.’

  ‘It was stuck at the bottom of the laundry hamper.’

  ‘You know where the closet is.’

  ‘Sure. Don’t let me interrupt.’

  While Dan stood at attention, panting too audibly for Jane’s comfort, Joe thrashed and slammed his way around their bedroom.

  ‘This might not be the best time for introductions,’ Dan observed.

  Joe emerged, carrying a fistful of dirty shirts. ‘Goodnight,’ he barked. ‘Nice not meeting you.’ He slammed their front door and stomped down to the ground floor.

  Dan looked more embarrassed for Joe and Jane than for himself. He bid her a quiet goodnight but not before advising that she chain the front door after he left.

  ‘Did maybe he know I was here tonight?’